


Requiem for Abigail

by facelessoldwoman



Category: Hannibal (TV)
Genre: And the Subsequent Puns, Demons both literal and figurative, Gen, Ghosts, Murder Family, Not Even Implied Cannibalism
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-08-22
Updated: 2015-11-11
Packaged: 2018-04-16 13:19:53
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 6
Words: 4,292
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4626729
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/facelessoldwoman/pseuds/facelessoldwoman
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>This is the story of how Abigail Hobbs died. Unfortunately for her, Death is only the beginning.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Apéritif

**The day that I first met him was the day I died.**

I stared up into his eyes as I drew my final breath. My suffering and my departure from the world meant nothing to him. He saw right through me, past the person down to the meat, down to the hole where my heart should have been. He wasn’t fooled by the fear in my eyes: the damned recognize their own kind.

I was young then, but not innocent. Already my survival had come at the cost of other's lives, innocent lives, and that had been a cost that I was willing to pay. But, even after all of that I was about to die anyway.

 _So this is Death_ , I thought,  _My Father finally gets his wish._

My father was a discarded corpse by then, his bullet-ridden body cooling beside me on the linoleum. I spent my last few moments of orphaned freedom bleeding out on the kitchen floor.

The man who killed my father tried to save me. He covered my wounds with his bloodstained hands while the other man stood and watched. It wasn’t enough; no one could save me.

It was already too late for me.

 

 _I should probably start at the beginning_.


	2. The Beginning

The day started out so normal.

Mom knocked on my bedroom door to wake me up. I said that I would be right down, and immediately fell back to sleep. Mom waited another ten minutes and woke me up again.

“Rise and shine, sleepy head!”

“I’m coming!”

I was a late riser so she didn’t suspect anything when I missed my alarm clock in the morning, but I had been having trouble sleeping lately. I saw familiar faces in my dreams - calling out to me and pleading with me to let them live. Sometimes the pleading girl in my dreams was me.

The problem with insomnia is that all the extra hours in your day stretch out even longer and even more unbearable. School had become an unending nightmare. I failed my last test in pre-calculus and I was on my second extension to finish a term paper on  _The Crucible_. I hadn’t seen a movie or gone to a game all semester. My friends were beginning to give up on me.

I kept my head down and filled out my college applications. I needed to believe that there was still a life out there for me. I needed to believe that this nightmare would end.

“Hi sweetie,” Dad said.

Mom and Dad were in the kitchen making breakfast, but they stopped to smile at me as I came in. I washed my hands and set the table, focusing on small manageable tasks: fill the glasses, forks on the left, knives on the right. I didn’t want to help them cook. I couldn’t look at the strips of meat frying in the pan without imagining the lifeless deer Dad used to teach me how to skin a kill, the way the flesh tore away like shoe leather.

The phone rang and Mom and Dad were too busy cooking to answer it. I told them I would get it.

“Hello?” I asked.

“ _Mr. Garret Jacob Hobbs?_ ”

It was an unfamiliar voice, no one I would know.

“Dad, this is for you,” I said.

“Who is it?” he asked, looking at the phone warily.

“The caller ID said it was blocked,” I said.

I went into another room, pretending to grab my school bag. I didn’t want to disturb Dad if this was a call from work. He had been fired from his last job site after a series of unexplained absences, and he had lied to Mom about it. Sometimes late at night I would hear their arguments muffled through my bedroom wall. Midnight entertainment for insomniacs.

I heard a crash in the kitchen and I ran in to see what was wrong. Mom was sitting on the ground, clutching her cheek as though my Dad had slapped her. But my Dad had never slapped her before. He would never hurt her.

“Lock the door, Abigail,” my Dad said.

“Dad, what’s wrong?” I asked. Mom was crying.

“I said lock the goddamned door!” my Dad said, “They’re coming!”

There are a lot of times that I regret helping my father, but this one was the worst. I shouldn’t have listened to him. I should have run. I should have run right out the front door and kept running. I never should have listened to him, never. I can see now that it was madness to stay in the house that morning. But he had my Mom. What could I do?

I locked the doors and went back to the kitchen. Mom and I watched as Dad stormed around the house unplugging phones and screaming- he was still holding a kitchen knife in his right hand, the edges sharpened and the chrome gleaming.

“ _Now they’ll see!_ ” he was saying, “ _Now they’ll ALL see!_ ”

“What are you doing?” Mom cried.

Dad didn’t answer her; I don’t think he could hear her.

After what happened with my dad I knew I couldn't trust anyone, but I always thought that I could trust my mom. The fact that my father had kept his secrets from her proved that I was right. My Mom held me as though she could protect me from this, and I let her.

 _The police are coming,_  I thought,  _It’s finally over_.  

Dad dragged Mom away by knifepoint to the front door to wait for them to arrive.

Mom was crying, whimpering, “ _Please, whatever you did, we can fix this. P-please, let me go_.”

“I won’t let them hurt you,” he caressed her hair gently, “I love you, I love you.”

I heard a car pull into our driveway. Dad took Mom outside. I didn’t see what happened to her. When Dad came back inside he was alone. The knife was bloody. I had seen firsthand what my father could do with a knife. She was gone.

I thought that I could outrun him, but I was wrong, I was so wrong. He had me before I even made it to the backdoor, grabbing my hair and pulling me back so hard that I lost my balance and fell. I hit the back of my head on the floor, disorienting me. Dad pulled me back up and wrapped me into a loving embrace that I couldn’t escape, no matter how hard I fought.

I could feel the blade as it pressed against my throat.

Someone kicked in our front door, “GARRET JACOB HOBBS, FBI!”

I looked up to see the source of the noise, but all I could see was the gun pointed at us. My Dad dug the knife into my throat and pulled, discarding me so that I fell out of his arms. The FBI shot my Dad as soon as he lifted his arm, and then they kept shooting: two, three, four times. My Dad fell back onto the kitchen counter, and then down to the floor, where he lay still, riddled with red angry holes. Life faded quickly from his eyes.

I couldn’t breathe. It felt like I was drowning. I was seeing stars already.

The man who shot my father tried to help me, but he was clumsy and scared. He fumbled with me, trying to hold my hand only to stop and bring his hand back to grip  the wound in my neck. His hands were already covered in blood _. My Mother’s blood? Had anyone been able to help her?_ I couldn’t ask because I couldn’t speak: I had so much to say, it was so unfair.

That was when the other man came in.

His hands were clean.


	3. Learning to Fly

The man trying to save my life was shaking, and probably in shock. Dad had whispered something to the man with his final death rattle, and the man hadn’t taken it well. In fact, the man looked like he was having the worst day of his life.

 _Oh yeah?_  I thought,  _Well welcome to the club, Asshole._

(I was still pretty angry about being cut open like a sacrificial lamb and so I wasn’t feeling very charitable).

The other man took over and began applying pressure to my wounds. He was confident in his movements, like a doctor. I got the impression that he had seen catastrophic injuries before, because the sound of me choking on my own blood didn’t seem to faze him at all. The other man, the one covered in blood, stood by nervously watching and the doctor actually had to tell him to call 911 three times before he responded.

The doctor looked after the man as he left. There was a trace of a mischievous smile at the corner of his lip- as though he found all of the carnage secretly funny. It wasn’t very reassuring. His hands were cold.

“Poor Will will blame himself for your death,” the doctor said, looking down on me sweetly though he was speaking only to himself, “It would have been better if you had lived.”

_I don’t want to die._

The doctor stroked my cheek with his free hand and pulled a stray hair away from my face, “And so young.”

_I don’t want to die._

“Dr. Lecter!” the other man walked back into the room, a phone pressed to his chest, “Is she breathing?”

“Only just,” Dr. Lecter said, “She’s lost a lot of Blood, Will.”

“The woman outside,” Will said, “She’s dead.”

_Mom._

The room started to recede. Everything was cold and far away, as though I was watching the world unfold from a dark tunnel. Then, suddenly, I was outside myself, watching my body going into shock from the middle of a large scarlet pool. The ambulance would be too late.  

*             *             *             *             *

“Abigail,” my Dad appeared by my side, “Abigail, come on, it’s time to go home.”

Dad was back on his feet again, talking as though nothing were wrong, but he was covered in bullet wounds that were no longer bleeding. His skin was pale and he stared out from glassy unblinking eyes. I reached up to my neck and my fingers came back scarlet. I wasn't breathing.

Somehow I knew that I was already dead, that I wasn’t choosing between life and death: the choice was to follow my Dad or get left behind. Then I realized that I must be going to Hell, because that’s what my dad deserved … that’s what both of us deserved.

I wished that I had seen my mom instead. I wish I could have at least said goodbye.

“I’m not going anywhere with you,” I said.

“ _Abigail_ ,” Dad warned, closing his grip around my wrist.

“No!” I fought back, “You ruined everything! You ruined my entire life! I get to make my own decisions now!”

“Everything I did, I did for you,” he said, “So we could be together, that’s all I ever wanted.”

“That’s not what  _I_ wanted,” I said, pulling away, “You  _never_  cared about what  _I wanted_.”

“That’s not true, I love you,” he tried to bring me closer, to pull me into another embrace I would never escape.

“GET AWAY FROM ME!” I ripped my hand away and felt his grip vanish.

And then I was alone.


	4. Clean Up Crew

_I’m back._

My body is on the floor, lifeless. I can see my own eyes. The lids stay open, taking in the last of the world they will ever see. The blue of my irises are beginning to cloud over. I kept waiting for my lungs to inflate, for my chest to quaver, but the only thing that changed was the blood pooled around my body on the floor, which darkened and thickened. I sat down beside my cooling corpse, trying to hold my hand, and watched as the FBI walked in.

All around me men and women in dark jackets take pictures and write notes. Two men in white coats bicker as they take pictures and write notes into clipboards.

“This guy used all three names, that’s kinda weird,” a dark haired man says as he fusses with an expensive-looking camera. I read his name badge as he leans in to take a picture of my wounds, he's called ' _Zeller_ '. The camera snaps noisily and then Zeller continues, “You know, that's just like Lee Harvey Oswald. It must be in that handbook you get when you become a serial killer.”

“Oswald was a spree killer, not a serial killer,” his light haired friend said, his name badge reads ' _Price_ ', “Besides, lot’s of people use their full name.”

“Like who?” Zeller lowers his camera.

“Neil Patrick Harris, Daniel Day Lewis,” Price says, “Anthony Michael Hall…”

“What about Sarah Jessica Parker,” an Asian woman steps into the room. The men brighten upon seeing her.

“Right, lest we forget that women have middle names, too,” Zeller smiles and starts taking pictures again, “What took you so long, Bev?”

“Traffic’s a bitch,” Bev said, pulling her ponytail into a baseball cap, “We sure this was our guy?”

“Pretty sure,” Price said, snapping a pair of plastic gloves down around his wrist.

“He even looks like him,” Zeller said.

“He looks like who?” Bev asked.

“Lee Harvey Oswald!” Zeller said.

“Why would you know that?” Price asked, “Do you keep a picture of Lee Harvey Oswald in your wallet?”

“Just a sec,” Bev pulled out her phone and began typing on the tiny keyboard. After a pause she smiled, “No, you’re right. There’s definitely a resemblance, that's uncanny.” 

“Let me see that,” Price said. Price looked at the image on the phone, then down at the corpse of my father, and then back to the phone again, “You’re right, _ha_.”

Zeller snorted. 

“Where’s Will?” Bev asked.

*                *                *                *                *

Men come in to place my body in a bag, and there is a gurney waiting in the hallway. The man in charge has 'coroner' written on his name badge. I do not want to see my body cut open like a Christmas turkey as men in lab coats drain my blood and weigh my organs, so I decide that it is time for me and my body to part ways. Whatever life I have left, it is not tied to this flesh.

“ _Goodbye_ ,” I say as they cart me out of the house. One of the men pushing the cart turned and looked as though someone called his name, but then he resumed what he was doing.

*                *                *                *                *

I walk outside. The sun is shining. No doubt some people are probably having the best day of their lives out there, blissfully unaware of the horrors that happened here. _Assholes_.

I see Will talking to Bev. Will is still covered in blood (my blood, my mother’s blood). He doesn't respond to what Bev says, he still appears to be in shock. I wonder if he blames himself for what happened here. I wonder if I blame him. My rational mind isn’t ready to process any of this; I couldn’t assign blame to anyone if I tried. I know that I am mad at my father, but for what, I couldn’t say.

"You did a good thing today," Bev says, "This guy was sick, you probably saved a lot of lives."

"Too late for Abigail Hobbs," Will says.

 _W_ _hat did you just say?_ I think angrily.The sound of my name on a stranger's lips draws me back into focus, I walk closer to them and try to pick up on their conversation. 

"That's not your fault, Will," Bev said.

"If we hadn't come here today she would still be alive," Will said.

The truth in his words make my spirit rattle with rage.  _I hate you, I hate you, I hate you, I hate you, I hate you, I hate you, I hate you, I hate-_

"What was that?" Will turned.

"I didn't hear anything," Bev looked at Will with concern because Will was looking for the source of a noise that had come from an empty space. But the space wasn't empty: he was looking directly at me.  


	5. gods demand blood

_You don’t see me_ , I thought, _No one can see me._

The photons and radiation from the sun struck through me like radio waves passed through everyone else. I was transient energy, non-matter, a non-person.  The only part of me that felt real was my anger. My anger was the realest part of me; it bound me together and reminded me I was still alive or that I was still … _whatever_ I was now.

And now all my anger was directed at Will.

“What are you looking at?” I asked.

“No one,” Will said. I stood still, stunned - seen. Will's gaze flipped back to Bev, he was talking to her, not me, “I mean nothing.”

Will and Bev walked away to squad cars and bad coffee and the rest of their lives. I let them pass right through me. If either of them felt a chill in the air neither of them said anything about it.

I watched men in uniforms wrap the front door of my house with yellow tape warding off the curious and the uninvited. I knew then that my house would never be a home again. It would be the home of legends: the Murder House, the place where the Monster lived. _I heard he killed his entire family, isn’t that tragic?_

I didn’t want for it to be over. Or if it was over, if it had to be over - couldn’t the rest of the world end with it? Was that too much to ask?

I saw Dr Lecter standing on the edge of the crime scene, his white shirt stained red, a jacket tucked under his arm. I walked over to him, drawn to him for reasons I didn't yet understand. He smiled at me. His gaze was hungry.

“Abigail,” he said.

“How can you see me?” I asked, “How do you know who I am?”

“I’m no stranger to death,” he said, “And I never forget a face.”

“Am I going to be okay?” I asked. He quirked the corner of his mouth in a smile that did not touch his eyes, I waited for him to speak.

Dr Lecter stretched his hand out to touch me but it passed right through me. It passed through my cheek, the ghost of comfort, down to the wound in my neck where my life had poured out onto the kitchen floor. I could see my blood there on his hand, still, red and starting to crust in the crevices of his nails.

“You’re not going to be okay,” he said, “You’re going to be magnificent.”

He looked down at his hand and brought a long delicate finger to his lips. I shivered. I felt cold. It was the first thing that I had felt since I had a body left to feel. He smiled and his teeth were tinted red.

“What did you do to me?” I asked.

“I joined our flesh, you’re a part of me now,” he said.

“What does that mean?” I asked.

He smiled at me, and ran his tongue over his teeth as though relishing the taste. I swore I could taste it too, as though the blood were sliding down my own tongue: metallic and slightly salty, wrong and familiar. I touched my lips and pulled back my hand. My fingers were scarlet, tipped with fresh blood.

“Did you know what your father did to little girls, Abigail?” Dr. Lecter asked, “What he did to little girls that looked like you?”

“Yes,” I said.

I knew their names and their faces as well as I knew my own. They were chosen because they looked like me. They were dead because they looked like me, and now death was just another thing we had in common. We were a coven of dark haired girls who would never grow up.

“You are no stranger to death either, are you Abigail?”

“No,” I said. I could not say more. I was not ready to disturb those deep waters, not yet.

“Do you want some more?” he said.

“Yes,” I said.

I was hungry.


	6. It Follows

Dr. Lecter covers the blood spatter on his shirt with his jacket, and pulls a handkerchief out of his shirt pocket to wipe the blood from his mouth and his hands. He pulls his hair back from his face and with one steadying breath the animalistic hunger fades from his eyes - leaving no trace of emotion behind in its place, only calm detachment.

He looks normal, like any other person on the street. He slips easily through the crowd, nodding politely at police officers and pausing for them as they lift the yellow tape for him to exit the crime scene. His stride is even and unhurried, no one spares him a second glance. On the street a black cab is waiting, and he slides inside. I follow him without question and the door shuts behind us.

The driver pulls into traffic and I watch through the rear window as my childhood home shrinks in the distance. I already know that I will never see this place again. I feel it more than I think it: the awareness pulls at me like an overextended breath, leaving me panting. For all the nightmares that house contained, I’ve never lived anywhere else … I wouldn’t know how.

The driver doesn’t talk much. Dr. Lecter must have made arrangements ahead of time. It’s quiet in the cab. He doesn’t look at me. He keeps his gaze straight ahead.

“Where are we going?” I ask. The driver speaks on his cell phone, oblivious and deaf to my questions.

“Home,” Dr. Lecter says, “Sleep now, I’ll wake you when we arrive.”

I open my mouth to protest, but the world begins to fade. I don’t sleep so much as I cease to exist. It was not darkness but a lack of vision, like closing your eyes and imaging what you might see if you could look behind you. My limbs felt erased. The reference points I always felt in my body –my breathing, my heartbeat, the sound of my thoughts- slipped away.

I didn’t know much, but I knew that nothing could hurt me and no one could hurt me.

I’ve never known such quiet.

*          *          *          *          *

“Abigail.”

Dr. Lecter sits across from me, his legs are crossed and his arms rest on his leather chair under the weight of relaxation. I notice his eyes first: still calm, placid gray. Then I notice his suit: a dark black three-piece suit with a deep red shirt underneath. The tie is silk with a thick knot at the base.

I see large windows draped with horizontally striped curtains and bookcases filled with immaculately stacked leather bound books and delicate antiques. The floors are a dark wood. There is an elevated walkway surrounding the main space, giving one the feeling of being watched at all times, as Dr. Lecter was watching me now: waiting.

I clear my throat.  

“Yes, Doctor.”

I see his thumb twitch, a tick revealing the well of energy bubbling under the surface.

“You may call me Dr. Lecter or you may call me Hannibal,” Dr. Lecter says, “You slept well, I trust?”

“I don’t think that I have slept for a very long time,” I said.

“No rest for the wicked?” Dr. Lecter asked.

“I’m not wicked,” I said.

“No, I think not,” Dr. Lecter said, “For the truly wicked have no trouble sleeping- they see nothing to feel bad about to keep them up at night.”

I watch Dr. Lecter in his chair, the shadows slip across his face and make his eyes glint black. I see the shape of antlers behind him, pointed and dark and menacing.

“What do you know about wickedness?” I ask.

“Let’s just say that I have no trouble sleeping,” Dr. Lecter said.

I was raised by a predator and I know what it feels like to be prey. I need to know which one I am now.

“Why did you choose me?” I asked.

“Because you are a strong girl, and you want to live,” Dr. Lecter said.

“Can you give me back my life?” I ask, unable to keep the desperation from my voice.

“No,” Dr. Lecter looks at me somberly for a moment, before curiosity peaks in his brow, “But life is on the menu, if you want it.”

“ _The menu_  …” I said. I remember the taste of my blood on my lips. I had never felt so alive before that moment, even when that blood was still flowing through my own veins. I thought back to wickedness, and the horns. Dr. Lecter was waiting.  

“My father used to take me hunting,” I said, “He was teaching me ... to be like him.”

“Yes,” Dr. Lecter said.

“You’re like him?” I asked.

Dr. Lecter smiled, “No, I’m much, much worse.”

“What does it feel like, taking a life?”

“Powerful,” Dr. Lecter said, “Like God.”

“And you eat them?” I asked.

“It’s a shame to waste perfectly good meat.”

Dr. Lecter’s victims were still imaginary to me: shapeless, nameless, and lifeless. I tried to imagine his victims as people but all I could see were girls who died for me. I thought about their big brown eyes and their wind-chafed skin, as familiar as my own reflection, and I  _hated_  them. I imagined ripping out their hearts, the flesh still warm and dripping with blood, and then I imagined sinking my teeth into the tight muscle and swallowing a ragged bite down my throat. I was surprised that I didn’t find the prospect revolting— instead, I found it exciting.

“When do we start?” I ask.


End file.
